steering and suspension Rear Coilovers

[doug73cs]

I'm looking for examples/how to do's of rear coilover conversions - particularly the reinforcement of the to end shock mount "towers".  I'm slowly going through the Project blog pages - all 34 times 20 of them so any assistance would be appreciated.

 

Doug

[creede]

Here is how I tackled it. Ideally it would be tied into a cage, but I didn't want a cage in my daily driver...

 

 

 

One more note, if I did it again, I would make the shock mount taller so I could get more travel out of my coilovers. As it sits now they are dialed almost all the way down.

[doug73cs]

Thanks Creed, hadn't thought about the height of the towers and length of travel - good point.  

 

I recall seeing another installation using heavier gauge wall thickness pipe and replacing the OEM towers.  Also thought of doubling up the sheet metal of the wheel arch with a 2" skirt around the tower using plug welds.  

 

Trying to avoid a roll bar connection.

 

Doug

[M3M3]

did you try a search on "rear coilover tower"?

one of the first threads returned is this. there are others.

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/topic/68229-reinforcing-shock-tower-for-coilover-pics/?hl=rear+coilover+tower#entry115879

you don't have to page through all the project threads. just open ones of interest, then do a thread search on coilover or similar search term.

[doug73cs]

Mlytle,

 

I did variations of "rear coilover" and never thought to include "towers" so thanks for that.  It's always asking the right question that gets the right response.  I'll continue the search but the green one from moespeed looks very familiar and did add 1.5" to the height as suggested by Creede.

[TobyB]

 

make the shock mount taller

do this, it's easy.  I changed over to a style that allowed a standard 1/2" Heim mount- and added something like 3 inches.

Effectively made 'cow bells' to go in there.

 

Worked great.  Go to 320i rear trailing arms when you do it.

 

t